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Headline Archives
The headlines below do not include our regular weekly features, each of
which can be seen at it's respective archive page:
Here's what was
"New at Chessville"
between 1 July 2006 and 30 September 2006:
(9/26)
Topalov - Kramnik:
Games Two & Three from the 2006 World Chess Championship Reunification Match; with commentary
by GM Susan Polgar. Kramnik leads now 2½-½ after the
first three games. Catch all of the games, fully annotated by GM Susan
Polgar!
|
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(9/24) Topalov - Kramnik:
2006 World Chess Championship Reunification Match; with commentary
by GM Susan Polgar. Kramnik wins game one with the white
pieces, leads match 1-0.
|
 |
|
 (9/24)
USCL Report - The Second Season:
Four weeks gone already in season #2, and already things are heating up!
Seattle and Boston are undefeated leaders in their respective divisions,
with San Francisco nipping on the Slugger's heels. This week sees
the West-leading Sluggers taking on the always dangerous New York
Knights, led by GM Pascal Charbonneau and featuring two (2!) women
players - IM Irina Krush & WGM Jennifer Shahade. Check out all the
news, standings of your favorite team, and study the
Game of the Week - FM Boris Privman
(New York) - NM Ilya Krasik (Boston) from week three of the season,
annotated by the winner, NM Ilya Krasik. |
|
(9/24) Review:
Chess College 1: Strategy by Efstratios Grivas, reviewed by J.
Evan Kreider. "Most chess players have their favorite chess
strategy books. Old-school folk tend to champion the classics by
authors such as Euwe and Nimzowitsch, while us new-school kids prefer
later works by authors such as Silman and Soltis. With his
three-volume Chess College series, it appears that GM Grivas
means to create a definitive set of works on chess strategy for a new
generation..." |
 |
|
 (9/24)
Review: Opening Instructor
(CD) by ICCF-GM
N. Kalinichenko, reviewed by Rick Kennedy. "Maybe you’re thinking
about finding something new for your opening repertoire. You might
have some upcoming Club games, and you’d like to learn a bit more about the
attacks and defenses your opponents are likely to play. Perhaps you
are doing some chess teaching, and you want your students to have access to
a reliable resource on a range of openings. In the “olden” (i.e.
pre-computer) days, you might reach for the latest copy of Modern Chess
Openings. Nowadays, you might boot up Opening Instructor,
from Convekta, the folks who bring you
Chess Assistant." |
|
(9/23)
The
Convekta Store
Chessville proudly announces
the grand opening of our Convekta Store! Check out our
low prices
on all of Convekta's famous chess education and database management
software.
|
Invest in
your chess future! |
|
|
(9/17) News & Notes with ICCF-GM Yoav Dothan. The seventh installment of GM Dothan's
insightful look at could'a-would'a-should'a positions, culled from the
games of today's masters! Today GM Dothan looks at positions
involving such luminaries as Tiviakov, Nijboer, and Almasi, along with a
selection of positions involving some lower rated players, IMs, FMs NMs,
even an expert or two! Look at the gems he's found, study the
hidden possibilities he's uncovered. |
 |
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(9/17) Chess and
Pipeline Politics: "Kirsan Ilumzhinov, the colourful
president, both of the autonomous Russian republic of Kalmykia and of FIDE,
the world chess federation, won the FIDE election, held at the Turin
Olympiad early in June 2006, and thus retained his presidency of the
international chess body. He defeated the challenger, European
businessman Bessel Kok, by a handsome margin relying on the support of
virtually every non-European nation. Top players and European
federations may have no faith in him but paradoxically, he is probably not
the third world demagogue his predecessor, Florencio Campomanes, turned out
to be, but a far more subtle player on the world political and economic
chessboard..."
|
 |
Keene
On Chess
GM
Raymond Keene Sponsored by
Gothic Chess |
 Gothic Chess
is a chess variant that adds two new pieces to the traditional 16 in
each player's army:
a chancellor, moving like a Rook or a knight
(pictured), and an archbishop, moving like a bishop or a knight.
The board is necessarily expanded to 10x10 squares to accommodate the new
pieces. Learn more about
Gothic Chess here. |
|
|
 (9/17)
Move Prediction Exercise: July-August brings a
new MPE from Jim Mitch, aka
Prof. Chester Nuhmentz. This game is
the same one used for the
Chess
Visualization Training for September. For the greatest benefit,
visit that page first (if you haven't already done so) and work through that
exercise first. Or, for pure fun - jump right in and tackle this
month's Move Prediction Exercise.
|
Click on the portrait of Maurice Ashley
to try this month's Recon64 game selected
especially for the readers of Chessville:
Maurice Ashley vs. Robert Kempinski; Bad Weissee,
1997.
 |
September's game for visitors from Chessville
(Ashley vs Kempinski; Bad Weissee, 1997)
is packed with excitement at several levels.
Bold, gutsy moves are spread throughout the
battle. What's not shown on the board is
that the players were both undefeated and
fighting to break a tie for first place in a
major tournament, that Maurice Ashley was
fighting for his second Grandmaster norm, and
that Ashley's flag was on the verge of falling
just as he calculated a way to force checkmate! Similar to Predict-A-Move and Solitaire-type
chess exercises, Recon64 challenges players to
find candidate moves from games played by
masters. Players are encouraged to search for
several strong candidate moves in each position,
and are rewarded as long as their list of moves
includes the move selected by the master during
the game. As an extra twist, players invest
Recon64 dollars on candidate moves based on how
likely they think each move was used in the
original game. |
This game was also featured as September's
Chess Vision exercise for Chessville readers.
You're invited to try your skills at foreseeing the possible captures and
checks
while envisioning moves yet to be played on the board.
|
.jpg) (9/17)
Jude Acers On Tour: The
Man in the Red Beret is back at it again, this time at Metairie Park
Country Day School in Metairie, Louisiana on Sunday, September 10, 2006.
We've got a great pictorial report for you, illustrating another great
lecture and simul by the legendary master Jude Acers. See also
Acers' stream-of-consciousness recollections of years gone by, including
his encounter with Bobby Fischer, Acers Remembers -
La Carratera. |
 (9/17)
TheParrot's Show Cage #4:
Ty writes,
"Parrot, I just acquired an interesting
chess set off eBay, being sold as wood. Item #150020536282.
It certainly isn't wood. I believe the black pieces are horn, and the
white pieces are probably bone. But I've seen pieces just like
these white pieces sold as ivory on eBay: Item #220017675141.
The design appears to be French Regence. But the carving is very odd.
The pieces don't appear to be turned on a lathe, as their shape is
asymmetrical. I don't understand why anyone would carve a set in
this design without a lathe. I think an amateur hobbyist might...
but then why have I seen other pieces in this style on two separate
occasions? It's a mystery..." See other show
cages, too - start with the
Show Cage Index. |
 (9/16)
Interview with
IM Igor Zugic.
Here we present Goran Tomic's recent
interview with the
new Canadian Chess Champion,
International Master Igor Zugic.
Goran Tomic: Congratulations on your fantastic achievement,
winning the Canadian Championship. What are your impressions of this
tournament?
IM Igor Zugic: The tournament was very difficult. It
was Swiss System event with nine rounds and 65 participants - many
strong players among them. I am pleased with my play and result,
and I can see some progress when I look at my previous tournaments.
I took a bit too much risk in the last round, but it all finished well.
I was leading after the 5th round and I felt strong pressure because
there was a huge group of players a half point behind. I had to
win constantly to keep the distance and it was very hard. At the
end I had 7.0/9 and performance rating of 2687.
Interview Compliments of the
World Chess
Network
Photos courtesy of www.torontochess.org |
|
(9/10)
Review - A
Double Shot of Scotch:
The Scotch Game Explained by Gary Lane and
Starting Out: The Scotch Game by John Emms,
reviewed by Michael Jeffreys. "While I don’t normally
review two books at once, it makes a lot of sense here as both books are on
the same opening, were published the same year, and are both by popular
British authors. A quick look at the Contents page of each book
tells you a lot:..both books
cover almost the exact same lines. However, one major difference is..."
|
|
(9/3)
Smart Questions to Ask, or: Another
Angle of the Grandmaster’s Mind:
by FM Amatzia Avni (Inside Avni's Mind)
"A recent review in The
Scientific American (August 2006) by Philip E. Ross, described
various research results, probing how people become experts in their
field. The article listed several variables: talent, memory,
perception, motivation, storage of knowledge and the value of
practice. All very interesting for the general public; but one
feels that for the audience of club players, some practical tools
would be most welcomed.
When
The
Grandmaster's Mind
(Gambit, 2004) - which I consider to be my best book to date - was
published, a reader asked me if I had discovered something really new
in the course of the interviews I had conducted with the likes of
Gelfand, Smirin and Psakhis. Indeed, I had, and the most
illuminating phenomenon I observed concerns the first question the
strongest players asked themselves while encountering a fresh
position..." |
 Amatzia
Avni is an Israeli psychologist. He is a FIDE Master in both
game and composition, a former editor of the Israeli magazine
Schahmat and a regular contributor to Chess Monthly.
His forthcoming book "Devious Chess" will be released by
Batsford in April. Read
Chessville reviews of two of his earlier works:
Practical Chess
Psychology: Understanding the Human Factor (2001);
and The
Grandmaster's Mind (2004). |
|
|
|
“At first, playing chess will seem difficult. Then it will get
easier, before it seems utterly impossible!”
– from The Big Book of Chess |
(9/3)
Review: The Big
Book of Chess by Eric
Schiller, reviewed by Rick Kennedy. "Eric
Schiller’s latest book is a frothy, fun collection of instruction and
chessiana – the kind of title that I can see myself taking down from the
Library’s shelf, thumbing through, always finding something to smile at.
For the new chess enthusiast, it’s “big” but not too big (i.e. not
Mammoth), and the content ranges far and wide (if not deep) – the
author sees The Big Book of Chess as kind of an appetizer for the
newbie or the curious, avant the endless meal that is the Royal Game
itself..." |
|
|
(9/3) News & Notes with
ICCF-GM Yoav Dothan. The fifth installment of GM Dothan's
insightful look at could'a-would'a-should'a positions, this time combed
from the category-19, Dortmund
Sparkassen tournament games, including positions from Kramnik,
Naiditsch, Aronian, Svidler, Michael Adams, Gelfand and others!
Here after 13 moves Kramnik had a nice tactical shot that probably would
have led to an advantage. The variation is almost forced:
14.Qxh8 Rxc1+ 15.Kd2 Rxh1 16.Bxh1 Ba4+ 17.Qd4 Nac4+ 18.Ke1 Bc6 19.Qxd8+
Kxd8 20.Nc3 Nxb2. Instead, after...
|
Kramnik,V (2743) - Naiditsch,A
(2664) [E04]
Sparkassen Dortmund GER (3), 01.08.2006
      
   
 
 
    |
|
(9/3) Inside Avni's Mind: FM
Amatzia Avni's explorations into the machinations going on inside the
chessplayer's mind have produced several articles here at Chessville, each
one equal parts investigation, education, and entertainment. Learn
more about this psychologist and chess author, and see all of his articles
posted here at Chessville! |
|
(9/2) Editorial:
Who Cares? - Women and
Children in Chess.
An
Alekhine's Parrot
Special Report in four parts.
"Months ago the Parrot wrote to the USCF board via Bill Hall, Executive
Director of USCF, asking after standards in place to avert offense to
women and children in chess. These concerns, although according to
Hall were delivered to the board, have not been addressed nor even
acknowledged. Perhaps this is a cultural thing,
but in some cultures is not dishonorable nor some game of politically
correct words, to actively protect women and children from offence - in fact
it is considered manly..." |
|
(8/27)
USCL Player Spotlight:
The USCL Player Spotlight falls this month on GM
Eugene Perelshtyen, of
the Boston Blitz.
After sharing first place in the 2006 Foxwoods Open, Eugene Perelshtyen also
earned his third GM norm, thus giving him the well deserved title of
Grandmaster. At only 26 years of age, the future is bright for
Eugene, and Boston is hoping that he picks up where he left off last year,
with a fine
2.5/3 result while playing first board...Eugene
has had many other major chess accomplishments.
He won the Samford Chess Fellowship in 2002, an award that amounts to
$64,000, which is awarded to the top American
 player
under 25 years old. Eugene has
also led the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County to a few
Pan American championships from 1998-2002. Eugene also won the highly
prestigious
US Junior Championship in 2000. Below he
annotates his opening round game against GM Alex Stripunsky, of the New York
Knights... |
Photo courtesy
John B. Henderson |
|
|
(8/27)
Review:
Chess
Opening Playing Cards reviewed by Michael Jeffreys:
 I
Checkmate Your Full House!
“This is not chess, this is poker!”
- GM Gufeld to GM Hodgson after losing to him
Now you can play poker AND work on your chess game at the same time!
Synheme, a company out of Canada, has produced a deck of playing cards
that features a different chess opening on each card: 52-different
openings are covered. For example, here is the Queen of Hearts... |
|
Jessie Gilbert
January 30, 1987 - July 26 , 2006
FIDE Woman's International Master |
(8/20) Keene On Chess - Death
of a Prodigy: GM Keene looks back at the life and
tragic death of one of the brightest female stars on the British
chess horizon. "Jessie Gilbert -one of the brightest
female stars on the British chess horizon - aged just 19 -
tragically fell to her death from the 8th floor of a hotel in
Pardubice, Czech Republic in late July. Jessie was a titled
player who as a young teenager had won the Women's World Amateur
Championship - the only junior player ever to win a senior title
at that level at that time in any type of sporting competition.
Miss Gilbert was apparently alone in her room at the time of the
incident. Jessie was competing in the Czech Open Chess
Championship when the disaster occurred. Other English
players in the Pardubice tournament, which also included various
mind games such as bridge, draughts and backgammon, defaulted
their games in the 6th round as a mark of respect, and then left
the tournament to return home to England. |
|
(8/20) News & Notes 4 with ICCF-GM
Yoav Dothan: "A new collection of eight new games, the first being
a very nice sacrifice that gives an overwhelming pawns attack..."
|
(8/20)
Move Prediction Exercise: July-August brings a
new MPE from Jim Mitch, aka
Prof. Chester Nuhmentz. This game is
the same one used for the
Chess
Visualization Training for July. For the greatest benefit,
visit that page first (if you haven't already done so) and work through that
exercise first. Or, for pure fun - jump right in and tackle this
month's Move Prediction Exercise.
|
Click on the portrait of Viswanathan Anand
to try this month's Recon64 game selected
especially for the readers of Chessville:
Viswanathan Anand vs. Ivan Morovic-Fernandez;
Sao Paolo, 2004
 |
August's featured game comes from the 2004 Sao
Paolo Rapid Tournament. The tournament was won
by Anand, a player known for having superb
skills at managing the relentless time pressure
of rapid play. Grandmaster Anand summarized his
performance in this decisive battle:
"My win against Morovic is one of the best games
I played this year. After a short vacation in
Rio, I was totally inspired." Similar to Predict-A-Move and Solitaire-type
chess exercises, Recon64 challenges players to
find candidate moves from games played by
masters. Players are encouraged to search for
several strong candidate moves in each position,
and are rewarded as long as their list of moves
includes the move selected by the master during
the game. As an extra twist, players invest
Recon64 dollars on candidate moves based on how
likely they think each move was used in the
original game. |
This game was also featured as August's
Chess Vision exercise for Chessville readers.
You're invited to try your skills at foreseeing the possible captures and
checks
while envisioning moves yet to be played on the board.
|
 (8/13)
4th and Inches at the Goal
Line: IM Igor Khmelnitsky's latest article
looks at a similarity between chess and football. "The
2006 NFL season is approaching fast and the pre-season has
officially began last Sunday. One of the more exciting plays
in football is the "4th and inches" at the goal line. The
offense can pick a variety of plays, from using a brute force to
some sneaky tricks. The defense, on the other hand, is set
for the last "do or die" stand knowing that making a stop here
will provide a tremendous boost for the whole team..." |
Black to move and win |
|
Black has a
fairly simple strategy - give up the rook for the a-pawn and rush his king
forward to win White's kingside pawns. The problem though is that the
white king reaches the h1-square or is able to box the black king on the
h-file. For example: 1...Rc7+? 2.Kb8 Rxa7 3.Kxa7 Ke6 4.Kb6 Kf5 5.Kc5 Kg4
6.Kd4 Kxg3 7.Ke3 Kxh4 8.Kf2 or 1...Rh8? 2.Pa8Q Rxa8 3.Kxa8 Ke6 4.Kb7 Kf5
5.Kc6 Kg4 6.Kd5 Kxg3 7.Ke4 Kxh4 8.Kf3. Thus Black must be a bit more
creative and find the stunning... Find out the answer, in
4th and Inches at the Goal Line. |
(8/13) News & Notes 3
with ICCF-GM Yoav Dothan: "This column contains five game from the GM tournament in Biel, and four
correspondence games that I received with notes from the winners. I
add the invitation letter of the German Correspondence Chess Federation to
the next ICCF World Cup. I will be happy to
get comments or analyzed games – you can mail them directly to..."
 (8/13)
Review:
Grandmaster Chess
Move by Move by John Nunn, reviewed by Michael Jeffreys.
"Doctor John Nunn first published a collection of his games under the
title, Secrets of Grandmaster Play (which was co-written with
Peter Griffiths) back in 1987. (The book was given a massive
overhaul exclusively by Nunn, and reprinted in 1997 under the title
Secrets of Grandmaster Chess.) This collection covered his
career up to 1985. In 1995 he put out John Nunn’s Best Games
which covered 1985-93. Now that he is retired from professional chess,
he has just released the third and final book of his tournament games,
which covers 1993-2003. Because of the positive response to
Understanding Chess Move by Move (Gambit, 2001), Nunn decided to use
the same format for this book. However, there are some
differences..." |
(8/9)
Bobby Fischer Goes Public:
Fischer criticizes the Union Bank of Switzerland for using
discriminatory measures, reported by Einar S. Einarsson. In an lengthy
interview with Morgunbladid, Reykjavik, last Saturday July 29th ,
chess legend and world
champion Bobby Fischer revealed that he has been in a long and
difficult dispute with the Union Bank of Switzerland, one of the world’s
major banks,
since he received in April 2005, soon after
his arrival to Iceland from a
detention in Japan, a notification that the UBS intended to terminate his
account, which he had held with the bank for over 13 years since 1992...
|
|
(8/6) News & Notes 2
with
ICCF GM Yoav
Dothan: "Five
First Round Surprises" from the first round of the 3rd ACT Amsterdam
tournament, played July 15, 2006. GM Dothan writes: "In a
Swiss-system tournament, the highest-rated player meet the lowest-rated
player in the first round. Usually the highest-rated win the games
– of course, but in the 3rd ACT Amsterdam tournament the first round
produced many surprises. Please see the differences in the rating of
the players, in the next five games. The first example is an
excellent game of Mr. Yochanan Afek – the outcome certainly added some
rating points to him..." |
  (8/6)
Reviews:
The Sicilian Bb5 Revealed by Neil McDonald, and
The Bb5 Sicilian by Richard Palliser, both reviewed by S.
Evan Kreider. "Playing the White side of the Sicilian is a
tricky business. The Open Sicilian is a must for the professional player,
but what about the hobbyist? There’s always the Closed Sicilian or the
Grand Prix Attack, but I’ve never been convinced that these lines present
Black with any real problems – in fact, I’m pretty sure Black usually
breathes a sigh of relief and thinks “Well, I’ve at least equalized!”
Indeed, if White is looking to present Black with some real problems while
still avoiding mountains of theory, then the Bb5 lines – more specifically,
the Rossolimo (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5) and the Moscow (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6
3.Bb5+) – might just be the way to go. Frankly, it’s a little
surprising to me that these lines took so long to gain respectability, since
the ideas behind 3.Bb5 are perfectly sensible..." |
 (8/6)
Review: Devious Chess: How to Bend the Rules and Win
by Amatzia Avni,
reviewed by Rick Kennedy. "Amatzia Avni is a psychologist
and chess International Master. His interest in chess psychology
is shown in his books Danger in Chess: How to Avoid Making Blunders
(1994, 2003), Practical Chess Psychology: A Chess Player's Behavioral
Guide (2001) and The
Grandmaster’s Mind (2004). He also likes imaginative and
out-of-the-ordinary chess, as he showed in his Creative Chess
(1991, 1997) and Surprise in Chess
(1998). His latest title, Devious
Chess, subtitled How to Bend the Rules and Win, is related to
all of these books – but arrives with some packaging that will no doubt
frustrate or befuddle some would-be buyers..." |
|
(8/04) Free Chess Playing Zone:
While other sites may raise their fees or turn away guests, we say -
guests are welcome, and it's always free! So
 we've
brought back our popular playing site, courtesy of Convekta Ltd.
At the Chessville Free Playing Zone you can: play for free,
register for free, establish ratings for free, etc., and best of all -
there's no download required! This is a Flash site, so it's
perfect for those occasions when you can't download a playing site
interface. The chat feature lets you make new friends from all
over the world, and play all the chess you want! Get started, head
to the
Free Chess Playing Zone now! |
|
 (7/30)
USCL Player Spotlight:
The USCL Player Spotlight falls this month on WGM Jennifer Shahade,
 of
the New York Knights.
Jenn Shahade has been surprising people for most of her
career. In the 2002 US Championships, she wasn't seen as one of the
biggest threats to compete for the title, however she tore through the field
and won the tournament despite facing six GM's out of nine games. This
was remarkable because she had practically never beaten a GM before the
event, yet she managed to knock off GM Sagalchik, and drew with GMs Seirawan,
Fedorowicz and Kudrin. Jenn is always an exciting player to watch.
She brings a high level of focus and concentration to the board and her
attacking ability and precise calculation often surprises some serious
opposition. Sometimes her lack of intuition in more reserved positions
can lead her to time trouble and cause her to play less accurately than when
her opponent's king is in her crosshairs. For this reason Jenn often
has the most trouble against technical players, who do what they can to
avoid giving Jennifer the initiative. However Jenn often finds ways of
attacking opponents when least expected. In today's Spotlight WGM
Shahada
annotates her fine win against FM Matthew Hoekstra of the Carolina Cobras in
week five from last season... Also read a review of Shahade's
controversial book Chess Bitch (Women in
the Ultimate Intellectual Sport),
revie
| |
(8/27)